It’s hard being anti-AI in an increasingly pro-AI landscape.
In my little bubble, where I think AI is obviously bad and most of my friends also think AI is obviously bad, it’s easy to feel like no one is using it, and the danger of AI taking over is a far-away threat.
However, I am not naive. A quick internet search tells me there are billions of prompts a day, over 28,000 a second. My colleagues and customers are using AI, and it’s not always bad, but it’s also not all great. The designs and logos are low resolution, the designs are busy and always the wrong size, and the text is fine because I’m not proof-reading the copy. But sure, some of the AI is fine. Adding bleed and bumping up the resolution is great (although, I’m going to get on my high horse and say if you don’t know how to add bleed without AI, you should just get off Canva).
I don’t always recognize it; sometimes it’s scary and it’s only getting better. Earlier last month, we were having a debate whether a poster was AI or not (it was not, but it was a hot topic for a couple of days). And hell, I’ve been guilty of using it early on once or twice. But not since learning that there is a negative climate impact, and data centers are slow taking over small cities. The bigger safety issues clearly outweigh the small benefits of having those ugly AI images on your designs.
Okay! That part of the post is done. This is a long-winded way of saying that I’m back to creating! And, I’m doing things in the most analog ways possible: I’m practicing my handwriting with fountain pens; I’m cutting up my trash to create junk journal spreads; I’m digging through my old sticker and washi tape stash to decorate; I’m uncapping my markers and doodling in my art journal; and I’m trying to record it all and put it on my Instagram (and new Youtube).
Okay! That part of the post is done. This is a long-winded way of saying that I’m back to creating! And, I’m doing things in the most analog ways possible: I’m practicing my handwriting with fountain pens; I’m cutting up my trash to create junk journal spreads; I’m digging through my old sticker and washi tape stash to decorate; I’m uncapping my markers and doodling in my art journal; and I’m trying to record it all and put it on my Instagram (and new Youtube).
I started with my fountain pen cursive and handwriting posts. Here are a couple of posts in the past couple of week, and I’ll try to post a new entry each week.
Video #1: November 1st
Here is my first shorts video! In this one, I am practicing “Co” because flourishing my uppercase “C”-s are bad! Why is it so hard for me! I want there to be more of a curly flourish at the beginning, but most of the time, I unintentionally close it up. I’ll have to try a different method. I combined it with my lowercase “o”-s because I wanted to practice my “C”-s with another letter.
Fun fact, because this was my first video, I messed up a couple of times, even after practicing a little bit! Here’s a fun collage of all my bad pages.
Video #2: November 2nd
For my second video, I recorded a quote from the new movie Wildwood, which just came out in late October. Fun fact: my colleague/bosses’ daughter was an intern during the movie’s production, so her name is in the credits!
The movie was really good, and beautiful animation. …But, Taylor and I had a similar reaction to the Dowager Governess: She’s evil, sure, but did she really do anything wrong by kidnapping the baby? It reminded me of Rumplestiltskin (or is it ‘Rumpelstiltskin’?); you made a deal with essentially a bad character, you knew the deal, and you reneged anyway. Aren’t you the bad guy here? I’ve always felt bad for Rumplestiltskin, and I guess I’ll also feel bad for the Dowager Governess (though, both are bad guys, sure). Plus, did the character design for the Dowager need to go that hard??
Video #3: November 3rd
For my third video, I did a little movie journaling. This was for Wildwood again. I basically said the same thing I did above, so I won’t rehash it again.
I started putting little comments in my videos, starting with this one. My favorite part of the spread is coloring in the little stars. At the end of the year, I print out all the movie posters and then paste them in at the same time. I’ll probably film that as well!
Video #4: November 7th
For my fourth video, some time had passed, and I sent a while thinking of things to take videos of. I wanted to incorporate more of my personal life in the videos, so in this one, I included all the movies that Taylor and I were interested in watching during November.
Not a lot of movies in November that we want to watch, but enough! We just watched Godzilla Minus One yesterday! I’ll hold off my review until I film my movie journal… Godzilla Minus Zero though, what a phenomenal and terrifying movie.
Video #5: November 8th
For my fifth video, I am adding more of my personal life, and this is really personal! These are my daily games that I play!
One of them is normal-ish: Pokemon Go. Taylor and I quit this game a couple years ago out of bad mental health; I was really in a dark place with this game, and I hated hating it. (It was mostly interacting with other players via gyms…I hate gyms…) I also love Everyday Puzzles, my favorite is the Cryptogram, I try t play the normal and the hard puzzle everyday!
Then there’s my rhythm game, ColorfulStage! I honestly had no idea who or what Miku was before playing this game, I purely wanted a rhythm game I wasn’t bad at. (I don’t know why I’m so bad at Deemo, am I the only one?? I even tried again after playing ColorfulStage for a year, I’m still so bad at Deemo!) I like the random gacha characters/cards, but I also like that it’s not really necessary, and you can just play the rhythm game.
And then, here are my embarrassing games, Honkai: Star Rail and Tears of Themis. Two gacha games (I’m not even pretending I’m here for the story). This is my gambling! And I love it! I’ve been playing both for about two and a half years (almost three!) and I’m one of the ones who pays $5 a month…I have been know to go full whale and spend $200 on a character, but that was my first year, and I was crazy. Now-a-days, I have stricter rules for myself, and try to only go crazy once a year, during the anniversary month, if needed!
Video #6: November 9th
Here’s my next video, and I’m back to quotes. We just watched Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla (1974) for the first time and WOW, what a movie. We’ve seen an early Godzilla movie before; last year, we watched Godzilla VS Hedorah and man, was that movie great because of how bad it was. I loved it. One of my favorite bad movies.
I didn’t love this one coming out of it as much as I loved the Hedorah movie, but this quote was just *chef’s kiss*.
Video #7: November 10th
And the last video in this recap is another movie quote. For some reason, Taylor and I were talking about V For Vendetta, and yeah, that movie rocked. I was quite obsessed with it when this first came out; I watched it several times in the theaters, and also owned the DVD and watched it several times at home as well. Haven't seen it in a couple of years though!
This movie made me obsessed with Natalie Portman (especially after the Star Wars Prequels) and Hugo Weaving (especially after the Matrix trilogy), and hit me at a peak time in my political leaning as well. I cannot emphasize how much of an impact this movie had on me.
That’s it for now! I hope to continue on with my posting of videos and blogging as well!